English 105: Women Writing
Dr. Charlee Sterling Spring 2009
Office VM 219 MWF 1:30-2:30
Office Hours: M/W/Fr 12:30-1:30 pm
Course Overview
Women have been writing for centuries, but their literary voices have not always been heard; it is only relatively recently that lost womens texts have been recovered and placed into the canon, and those already there given their due. How do women writers emerge in literary history, and how do they interact with the respective literary and general cultures that produce them? How do women represent themselves and their relationships, both to men and women, in their literature? These and other related themes will be our focus.
English 105 will teach you to both think and write critically, focusing on the kinds of essays that you will write throughout your academic career. In this course we will
-- produce drafts that reflect an understanding of writing as a process which includes
prewriting, drafting, revising, editing, and proofreading.
-- write essays of varying lengths with different purposes including, at times,
the incorporation of secondary sources
-- demonstrate an awareness of tone and style in relation to audience.
-- demonstrate clear critical thinking and writing, recognizing careless generalities,
unsubstantiated judgments and illogical association of ideas.
-- recognize plagiarism and learn to avoid it.
Required Texts:
Norton Anthology of Literature by Women, vol. 1 & 2, 3rd edition, 2007
Austen, Jane. Emma. Norton Critical edition.
Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. Norton Critical edition.
Class Policies and Procedures
You are expected to attend class regularly, and to come prepared with the appropriate texts, assignments and supplementary materials. You must meet all deadlines, complete all reading assignments by the date that they appear on the syllabus, and hand in written assignments on their due dates at the beginning of class. Note: It is essential that you complete each stage of every assignment on time! If you miss a written assignment, subsequent assignments will not be accepted unless you have submitted all of the previous ones.
All work must be completed and graded in order to pass the course.
Class Attendance: You are expected to attend each class regularly, and to be on time. If you cannot attend class, it is your responsibility to contact me by stopping by my office during office hours, leaving a note in my mailbox, or by e-mailing. You should also contact a classmate to obtain class notes and assignments. Students who arrive between five and fifteen minutes after the start of class will be marked late. Students who arrive more than fifteen minutes late will be marked absent. More than
three unexcused absences or chronic lateness may result in a lower final class grade. Attendance at any scheduled conferences is also mandatory.
Make-ups and Extensions for all written work will only be granted without penalty under the following extenuating, documented circumstances:
a death in the family or other family emergency
a court appearance
a hospitalization or serious illness requiring consultation with a physician
a college event at which your attendance is required
You will have one week to complete the missed quiz, test or assignment. Essays handed in late for any other reason will lose a half a grade (e.g. B to B minus) for every class period they are late.
Rewrites: You may rewrite an essay receiving a grade of C minus or below. All rewrites are due one week after the essay has been returned to you, and must reflect a true revision, focusing on all comments from the original. A true rewrite improves content and organization and also corrects grammatical and mechanical errors. You may only rewrite an essay once.
Final Drafts of written assignments completed outside of the classroom must be typed and double-spaced according to MLA format (to be discussed in class). No final drafts of out-of-class assignments will be accepted if they are hand written.
Journal Exercises: Journal writing is crucial for an essay writer, because it gives us a place in which to practice new skills, and to explore new ideas. We will do several informal written responses both during and outside of class throughout the semester.
Course Format: background lectures, class discussions, peer response, and conferences will form part of our course; the other will be in-class writing workshops, which we will use to
generate ideas, improve thinking skills, and practice and polish writing skills. In addition, workshops are designed to help us improve our writing by providing time for reviewing
essays-in-progress while in class. When the workshop involves peer review, please bring two copies of a draft to share with a peer group. Spirited, honest and constructive participation in peer review groups is a crucial part of the writing process.
Essay Submission and E-mail: All final drafts of essays must be submitted in hard copy, not by e-mail, unless I give you prior permission to do so. Also, I will not review, discuss or
critique drafts of any written work submitted by e-mail without prior permission. Please be respectful of our classs writing community, and use Standard English grammar, spelling and punctuation in all e-mail communication. I usually respond to e-mail within 48 hours of receiving them.
Grading:
Class participation, preparation (including participation in peer reviews, journals) .10%
Essay 1 ... .20%
Essay 2.. ..20%
Essay 3 20%
Annotated Bibliography .10%
Essay 4 .......20%
Grading scale:
A : 93 100% C+: 77 80% D-: 60-63%
A- : 90 93% C: 73 --77% F : below 60%
B+ : 87 90% C-: 70 -- 73%
B : 83 87% D+ : 67 70%
B-: 80 83% D: 63 --67%
Grading Standards:
Please note: I dont give you grades you earn them! Here is an overview of the range of grades you could receive in this class, with brief general descriptions:
A papers (which are excellent papers) meet all standards for college writing proficiency (CWP) at Goucher (see writing proficiency criteria) and are very well-written papers. These papers are well-organized, they have a clear focus and a sufficiently narrow topic, and the writing is clear and the diction and sentence structure appropriately sophisticated. A papers are interesting, thought-provoking, and fun to read, and they are free or nearly free of basic punctuation / grammatical errors. I would love to get nothing but A papers from all of you all semester long, and Ill do my best to help you all write A papers, but its not easy to write excellent papers. Youll need to spend a lot of time writing, researching, thinking, reading, and revising to write A papers.
B papers are well written and well thought-out and meet or very nearly meet CWP standards, but they have several minor problems (for instance, perhaps the organization is weak in some places and there are a handful of punctuation errors, or perhaps the paper wanders off focus briefly and there are too many short, choppy sentences on the first page).
C papers are average they are coherent and mostly competent, but they have a number of minor problems or one major problem (for instance, their organization is consistently weak, or they dont provide much evidence).
Papers that receive a D or lower do not meet a number of the standards for writing proficiency, and/or they dont meet the requirements of the assignment. They may be too short, wander off-topic, or be hard to follow. Such papers may contain so many errors that the paper becomes hard to read. They may be repetitive, poorly researched, or poorly organized. F papers, in the words of a colleague of mine, show me that Im putting more effort into grading them than the writers did into writing them.
Papers which contain plagiarism will not be graded; if any draft of your paper is plagiarized, I will report you to the honor board or ask you to self report. If you are concerned that your paper contains unintentional plagiarism, contact me before turning in the paper. This is true for ALL drafts of ALL papers. It is never acceptable to turn in someone elses work as if it were your own.
Please understand that my grading system may not be the grading system you were used to in high school: in my class, an average paper earns an C, a good paper earns a B, and an excellent paper earns an A.
Course Calendar
Note: all course calendar dates are subject to change!
wk 1 W Jan 28 Course Introduction: (handout)
Fr 30 Early Voices: The Wifes Lament, Wulf and Eadwater
wk 2 M Feb 2 Julian of Norwich, excerpts from A Book of Showings (Vol.I) p.37;
Margery Kempe, p. 45
W 4 Anne Bradstreet, p.147-159
Fr 6 Phillis Wheatley, p.358-363
wk 3 M 9 Behn, Oroonoko p.186
W 11 contd.
Fr 13 Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman p.373
wk 4 M 16 Rough Draft Workshop bring 2 copies essay 1
W 18 Conferences
Fr 20 Conferences
wk 5 M 23 Nineteenth Century Voices: Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre
Essay 1 due
W 25 Bronte contd.
Fr 27 Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
wk 6 M Mar 2 Shelley contd.
W 4 Jane Austen, Emma
Fr 6 Austen contd.
wk 7 M Mar 9 Rough Draft Workshop bring 2 copies essay 2
W 11 Conferences
Fr 13 Conferences
wk 8 M -Fr 16-20 Spring Break College Closed
wk 9 M 23 Emily Dickinson p.1037 t.b.a.
W 25 Dickinson contd. essay 2 due
Fr 27 Voices of the Transition:Edith Wharton, The Angel at the
Grave (Vol. II) p.31, The Other Two p.43
wk 10 M 30 Kate Chopin, The Awakening (Vol. I) p.1253
W April 1 contd.
Fr 3 Voices of the Twentieth Century: Virginia Woolf p.233-248,
H.D. p.283
wk 11 M 6 Rough Draft Workshop bring 2 copies essay 3
W 8 Conferences
Fr 10 Conferences
wk 12 M 13 Elizabeth Bishop, p.605-18 essay 3 due
W 15 Sylvia Plath, p.1047-1065
Fr 17 Anne Sexton, p.919-926
wk 13 M 20 Nella Larsen, Quicksand p.362
W 22 Toni Morrison, Recicatif p.996
Fr 24 Joyce Carol Oates, Where Are You Going, Where Have You
Been p.1192
wk 14 M 27 Sandra Cisneros, Woman Hollering Creek p.1400
W 29 Maxine Hong Kingston, No Name Woman p.1229
Fr May 1 Jhumpa Lahiri, A Temporary Matter p.1498 abs due
wk 15 M 4 contd.
W 6 Rough Draft Workshop bring 2 copies essay 4
Fr 8 Reading Day
Finals Week: Final essay due Mon. May 11, 12noon